By Allan Fox: Former IBF/WBA 140lb champion Danny Garcia (31-0, 18 KOs) says he wouldn’t mind fighting for eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) if possible, but at the same time he doesn’t know if the fight can be realistically made now that Pacquiao’s company Top Rank has decided to sue Al Haymon, the adviser for Garcia.
It’s a lawsuit that Garcia says he doesn’t understand at all, given that Haymon helped put together the recent fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Pacquiao, a fight which has turned out to be a huge money maker for Top Rank.
In light of that fight, Garcia can’t figure out why Top Rank would turn around and sue the guy that just put the fight together.
“Like I said before, we can make the fight [against Pacquiao] happen. Freddie Roach and his team know who to holler at, Al Haymon, and we can make that happen,” Garcia said to thaboxingvoice.com. “Two years ago I would have said that a fight between me and any Top Rank fighter is impossible, but ever since the Mayweather and Pacquiao fight got made, I feel like any fight can get made now. But it kind of switched again because Top Rank was kind of trying to sue Al Haymon. I don’t know how that’s going to really work because Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao was one of the biggest fights in a long time, and that fight made so much money. So for Top Rank to try and sue Al Haymon doesn’t make any sense to me because he just gave you the biggest fight in years, so I don’t really know. But as far me fighting him, I’m ready,” Garcia said.
I think it goes without saying that a fight between Garcia and Pacquiao isn’t likely to happen. Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach badly wants the fight to happen because he feels that it’s an easy fight for Pacquiao due to Garcia’s style of fighting, but Roach might not have thought too much about the Top Rank vs. Haymon issue. I don’t know that Haymon is going to be too eager to put Garcia in with Top Rank with the situation as it is now.
Pacquiao will likely need to be satisfied with sticking with guys from his own Top Rank stable like Terence Crawford for his next fight. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum would like to match Pacquiao against Amir Khan next, but I’m not sure that fight can get made either because Khan is with Haymon as well.
Garcia was recently rumored to be facing former two division world champion Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero in another acclimatizing fight to get Garcia ready for eventually facing the best fighters in the welterweight division. Garcia recently defeated 34-year-old former two division world champion Paulie Malignaggi by a 9th round knockout earlier this month on August 1st. Malignaggi hadn’t fought in 16 months before the fight with Garcia, and was coming off of a 4th round knockout loss to Shawn Porter.
Garcia didn’t do as good of a job against Malignaggi as Porter did, but he still knocked him out. This was Garcia’s third fight at welterweight and his first fight at the full weight of 147lbs for the division. Garcia said that he had more power in fighting at the full weight for the division, but he looked no stronger than he had when he was fighting at 140. He just looked heavier.
In Garcia’s two recent fights before the Malignaggi fight, he had a controversial win over Lamont Peterson last April, a stoppage win over lightweight Rod Salka in August 2014, and a controversial win over Mauricio Herrera. The Peterson and Salka fights were both catch-weight fights.
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